Deal Gives Killer Life Terms

February 17, 1989|By RON SHAWGO Staff Writer

HAMPTON — Three days after he unsuccessfully tried to have his murder confession suppressed, John L. Edgar agreed to life imprisonment Thursday rather than face a trial in which he could have received the death sentence.

In an agreement reached with prosecutors, Edgar, 28, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, robbery and using a gun in the death of 31-year-old Harold "Weedee" Combs. Combs' body was found at the Madison Chase condominiums construction site Aug. 22, three days after he was last seen at the home he shared with his mother and stepfather on Rawood Drive.

Commonwealth's Attorney Christopher W. Hutton said he made the agreement partly because Edgar had given confessions with so many different versions of the crime that a jury might become confused and acquit him.

Under the agreement, Edgar received two life prison terms plus two years, all to run at the same time and with sentences for other crimes. Before coming to Hampton, Edgar escaped from a Maryland prison in 1986, where he was serving sentences for burglary and other crimes committed in Florida.

In previous confessions, Edgar said the motive was robbery. Thursday he claimed his victim had burglarized his home in Phoebus. He has also implicated two other people who have not been found.

"It has been my experience that juries like to see an over-abundance of evidence before sentencing a defendant to death" and that might not have been possible in this case, Hutton said.

Edgar testified Thursday that he was an unwitting party to the murder. He said he held Combs while a man he described only as "the accomplice" shot him in the head.

Edgar previously told police he killed Combs at the urging of Hillary D. Murray, a woman he married in Hampton last summer under an assumed name. He said during a hearing Monday that he also told police that Murray pulled the trigger, although authorities said that was the first time they had heard that scenario.

Murray also is charged with the slaying but has not been found. Hutton said Edgar has given authorities the name of the male accomplice, but he declined to disclose it.

Edgar said Thursday that he, Murray and the accomplice lured Combs into their car on Mallory Street in Phoebus by promising him sex.

They took Combs to the construction site on Floyd Thompson Boulevard. Murray waited in the car while Edgar and the other man took Combs inside a home being built there, Edgar said Thursday.

Edgar said he thought the accomplice was only going to beat up Combs, not shoot him.

Edgar said he took $50 from Combs and found another $100 belonging to the victim in the car.

Circuit Judge Nelson T. Overton said he nearly didn't accept the plea agreement because of the minor role Edgar claimed he played. "I'm not one to proceed with this plea agreement if Mr. Edgar's position is he had nothing to do with a first-degree murder, but is only pleading guilty to it" to avoid the death sentence.

Overton eventually went along after Hutton and defense attorneys James W. Parker and Robert Lawrence argued that Edgar's actions represented an act of aiding and abetting a first-degree murder and deserved like punishment.